NYI Fan Central Comments:All Islander Prospect Watches back to last season are archived on NYI Fan Central Prospects Blog by date order.

NHL.com: Released it's voting page for the NHL All-Star game, seems a bit slow to work on day one.

Newsday: Greg Logan has Doug Weight's comments in the Islanders Newsday blog about Bailey learning to play at this level and the youth movement while pointing out the significant injuries this team has had while at the same time now allowing it as an excuse.

Mr Logan points out some may accuse the club of playing for a lottery draft pick this season, but to do so disrespects the effort they've given while fighting to overcome injuries but at the same time felt the club didn't play their youth enough last season to determine and might as well do so now in the case of Bailey.

NYI Fan Central Comments:Mr Logan is correct on injuries but he barely writes about them himself unless it's to complain about league/team policy.

I'm not big on excuses for losing myself but few clubs in this league could sustain the loss of it's starting goaltender, Witt, Martinek, Meyer, Sillinger, it's number one draft pick, now what seems like Comrie and the earlier loss of Sutton-Campoli to start the season that does not even include Bergenheim-Tambellini both hurt in camp.

Not even Nate Thompson could stay healthy, the injury list has been long in Bridgeport too.

Still this team has been in position to win almost every game outside of the Buffalo game and they have been outscoring last year's club.

Folks want to claim they are playing to lose, I disagree because they have done everything but finish games, many nights the Islanders are the better club for a good part of the night.

Are they a flawed club? Absolutely on a lot of levels, but terrible teams get blown out every other night 5-1 or are usually not in the games, so far that is not this group or close.

Regarding last year I have no idea what Mr Logan is talking about not giving the prospects a chance. Last year with all the injuries everyone got a look from Colliton to Matt Keith to Ben Walter along with Comeau. I cannot think of anyone who did not get a few games or more from Bridgeport.

Scott Gordon/Garth Snow not only demoted Comeau but the coach put down his contribution last season which seemed over the top when he gave his initial comments about what he saw on film last year. That is not consistent with what the general manager had to say earlier in the summer.

Newsday: Mr Logan also had more from Gary Bettman on the Lighthouse Project where he does not know about Mr Wang-Rechler's financing on the but urges the green light now. Mr Logan claims Charles Wang said in a meeting with Newsday's editorial board early this year that his financial well is not bottomless and denial of the project might force him to consider selling.

NYI Fan Central Comments:Funny but those comments did not make the paper at the time Mr Wang meet with Newsday's editorial board or the sports pages?

Point Blank: Mr Botta has more on the arena subject/Mr Wang's patience as well as a blog entry here on coaches and young prospects submitting past examples in his experience where a coach benched a prospect for a reason that did not seem to make sense along with a few words on Scott Gordon-Kyle Okposo-Jeff Tambellini.

NYI Fan Central Comments:Good stuff from Mr Botta, but he needed to put the Comeau-Gordon issue center stage because it looks even worse than the disconnect he felt between Ted Nolan and Robert Nilsson.

At some point I suspect if Garth Snow's coach has no use for Blake Comeau, Garth Snow will be forced to move Comeau as he did Nilsson when Nolan had no use for a player. Big barometer in the gm-coach working relationship is to agree on young players and move the ones the coach does not feel is part of the answer.

National Post: Howard Berger reports Jason Blake was furious after being scratched by Leafs coach Ron Wilson for Tuesday's game with the former Islanders comments.

NYI Fan Central Comments:There is nothing short of re-entry waivers and the Leafs taking contracts from the Islanders in another deal that makes this feasible. Ron Wilson is doing what he was hired for and it's working, if Jason Blake does not like being scratched or placed on a fourth line he has to work harder.

Journal Pioneer : Jason Simmonds has more on the Sound Tigers-Senators game in Summerside PEI on Tuesday.

2 comments:

I'm not sure why you think the disconnect between Comeau and Gordon is worse than that between Nilsson and Nolan. Nilsson clearly had no chance under Nolan. Comeau on the other hand thought he had made it as an NHL player after last year and showed up with his demeanor reflecting that. There is no reason to believe Comeau won't be brought up at some point. Even Capuano has indicated Comeau is not mature enough yet.

I think unless we are in the lockeroom we do not know the demeanor of Comeau or how he acted. He was in prospect camp in July after playing over fifty NHL games when even a few prospects were not present. Also Garth Snow and the staff praised him top to bottom after last season.

Scott Gordon seemed to go overboard to put down what he did last season like no other player in the system and talked about him (at first) playing well enough just to make the bottom six among his forwards before correcting himself.

It did not seem necessary to demote him and basically put down what he did a year ago. It also seemed Comeau connected with Nolan which you hope had no beating but I'm not sure in this case. Comeau was not happy according to his comments in the paper when it was decided he would not be back.

We will see if Comeau is recalled but to see Nate Thompson and others over Comeau does not make a lot of sense to me given how hard he worked last season. He outworked the veterans here a lot of nights. I also tend to think his scoring upside is far better than that or Park, Hilbert or clearly are limited.

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